Food For Thought About TIME

Something to ponder......Time is the only commodity that cannot be regained once lost! It can be invested in efficiencies toward future time. It can also be wasted, stolen, given away, but never returned. So thinking about time as a commodity, might make your use of your time more thoughtful.

Other commodities: Freedom and Money are important and usually disregarded as to how either impacts your time commodity. Both freedom and money can be replaced, whereas time never can....making it the most important consideration when examining our choices, decisions, and allowances of others. Folks generally put their emphasis on money restricting their decision making options/choices....However, time isn't hindered by lack or abundance of money....BUT money is hindered by poor use of time. Freedom cannot be truly taken away as long as you are free to "think"...BUT freedoms are also greatly impacted when poor decisions of time are made.

Point? Guard your time and include it in your boundary considerations! It's a precious commodity to not waste more than you invest it!!!!

Own Your Mistakes To Teach Them

Teaching our children that we are human is a great way to teach them how to cope when they are on their own and realize that quick 'n' easy isn't life and that very real fact doesn't make them failures at life. Making a parenting mistake (or any mistake) is brutal in front of our little ones, but the good of owning your mistakes, letting them see what ownership looks like and that we are human, and then how to fix those mistakes is an invaluable lesson for them to learn. It teaches them the "how" of life. It teaches them that they don't have to crumble and dissolve if something doesn't work out. It teaches them trust in you as well as confirmation of what they sense, see, and understand.

False Representation

If your children are under the impression that life just magically works out well and easily, then whoa to them when they are out on their own. This is exactly what we are setting them up for if we are not honest with them in our actions and words. Example: You hide sad, hurt, anger problems/situations from them and they only see you struggle with an unknown ('cause trust me they always know what's going on, just not always clued in on the details; so, without our input, they make up their own horrible stories in their heads) and then just see that everything is fine. They are filling in the blanks on their own, but what the result of this process is...is that they see us struggle, or pick up on the emotion of the struggle, but then see that poof it's just all worked out. We, then, are not teaching them the cause and effects, the problem solving that happens in order to get them to learn the process of solution/resolution. The flip side is, if you are really old school parenting and completely hiding any struggle, then that's even worse cause then they are set up to think that life was just always easy for you. When they are out on their own they then can't figure out what is wrong with them that their life isn't as easy for them as it was for you. Or, that why are they incapable of having easy solutions to problems they incur because that's how it was for their parents. No matter what the depth of scenario, we are creating a false sense of how life works if we are not using our life with them while they are young teaching them how life really works. We are not protecting them by "shielding" them, we are instead setting them up for failure and unnecessary hardships.

Kids & Honesty

Rearing functional, healthy children (physically and mentally) is difficult. Knowing just how to not "screw" them up can be especially challenging if you didn't have a functional childhood and/or example of how to go about doing it. Figuring how all this works for ourselves is tough enough without the added stress of how to teach our tender loves! The best advice I can give you on this, whatever your vantage point, is be honest with your children....Always! At whatever age they are always be appropriately honest. By that, I mean be honest but based on age speak to their level of understanding in age appropriate ways. Being age appropriate is key in not hindering their development. They don't need to know all the ins and outs for them to be okay...remember, you modeling good, functional, communicative behavior for them is not for you to feel better, but for them to learn and develop. Our children are not our therapists, friends, or side takers, but our responsibility to teach.

Lying to children is not only harmful to your relationship with them later, but it harms their functional development in the process. First, they are smart. Whether they tell you or not, they know when they are being "maneuvered". Second, in only showing them the reality we want them to know they falsely learn how life works. Our job is to teach them how to live, we cannot do that if we are giving them false understandings of how we live. 

If It Walks Like A Duck...

You can tell a lot about a person just in how they speak of others. If you do not like how they talk or interact with others, but never see how they could ever treat you the same, then caution. People really are who they are..... AND how they treat others is how they are. Eventually, you too will be treated the same, if not already. I have yet to encounter a soul that gossips or snipes about another that they didn't do it with me as well. So, if you want to know what you're in for regarding a person, just look to how they treat and talk about others, then you'll know who, what, how they are going to treat you.

I'll Be Back......

I've been gone, but will be back! I've been in a "development phase", so to speak, which has been both restorative and transformative!!! Just letting you know that I will be back very soon posting on this site ;-)